Tag Archives: two lights

This is one of the more famous lobster rolls in the state of Maine. In fact, when people find out I eat a lot of lobster rolls and write about it, I would say I get asked if I’ve tried Two Lights most often, more so than even Red’s. When I arrived at this location, it was immediately clear why this place is famous and I suspected it wasn’t for the actual lobster roll. This is truly THE most stunning view in the state of Maine that is accompanied by a lobster roll. Sure there are other gorgeous views, Five Islands, Stewman’s and Dolphin immediately come to mind. Those examples may not be the best, because Five Islands is a rare convergence of a stunning Maine view and the best of the best lobster roll. Dolphin has a very good lobster roll and Stewman’s is decent. But, I guess a red flag always goes up for me when a place I’ve heard has a great lobster roll has an amazing view. People tend to color their opinions with the entire experience, which, I suppose is normal. I mean when you’re in Maine wanting a lobster roll, ideally it should be the whole ocean/lobster experience. I get the opposite phenomenon when I pull up to a lobster roll place and it’s a total dump with a view of a highway and I’ve heard it has a great lobster roll. In those cases, I get super excited because I know this lobster roll is likely to be a real life changing eating experience because the lobster roll is biased in no way by the ambiance. Fisherman’s Grill, I’m looking at you.

Two Lights lobster roll did indeed live up to my expectations or I should say, lived down to. I had seen photos of this roll and couldn’t for the life of me imagine how what was in the picture could possibly be good, let alone great. Every picture I had seen involved what looked like a hot dog bun, half of which was covered with a giant blob of mayo and the other half with a pickle slice. Yuck, I couldn’t imagine how that could be right, there must be some amazing stuff under that, but it looked like only enough lobster to barely show through. I can say one thing for them, they are consistent. What I received looked exactly like every picture I had seen. I found the mayo blob much more confusing once I actually had it in hand. The pickle can easily be removed without leaving much pickle residue. But, what are you really supposed to do with that blob? If you really like mayo, do you just smear it across the top? You certainly can’t toss it so every piece is equally coated, as is ideal. It seems like trying to spread it around would just make for a huge mess and cause the lobster to fall out. I chose to scrape it off, but this had its challenges too. These are pieces of lobster, so even scraping it off leaves a rather significant amount still caught in the pieces. The only way I could think to remedy this would be to remove and wipe off every piece with a napkin of knife, but that seemed unsanitary. So, I proceeded to eat a half completely dry lobster roll and a half mayo chunky lobster roll, just weird. Actually, to be truthful, after trying the disappointing combo of dry and mayo, I went to the counter and got a cup of butter to dip the whole thing into. Everything is much better that way. The lobster amount in this roll is rather skimpy and on the low-end of average lobster roll weight after I removed the mayo blob and pickle for weighing. The meat is fresh picked every day here and they include both tail and claw, which is always good, and it is tasty but they sure don’t give you much of it. I have a system of moving all of the lobster meat down the bread so that I always get an ideal meat:bread ratio in each bite, regardless of the overall ratio. Using this system, I had a full half of the empty bun left over. The bread is your standard split top bun, the grilling technique leaves some butter and crunch to be desired.

I wouldn’t say this is a bad lobster roll, just disappointing because it is so far away from matching the beyond stunning view that accompanies it. They do home-baked desserts here. I think I would get that when I return. And yes, I will absolutely return. This truly is exactly what you picture when you think of the Maine coast. The cute, cozy, creatively decorated, very comfortable on a cold day, dining room has wrap around windows overlooking the ocean. The picnic table area is right on the ocean on a flat area with evenly spaced, very clean, bright red picnic tables interspersed with a very comfortable amount of trash cans to keep it clean. This is in every way, a top-notch quintessentially Maine, seaside seafood shack. Clean, efficient, well maintained, bright, cheery outside, cozy inside and all this is on one of the best spots of real estate where lobster is served on the Maine coast. I really can’t say enough good things about the actual location and the restaurant itself. Except the lobster roll, it’s the only thing that just doesn’t measure up.